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Ralph McTell’s famous ballad tells of life as an Irish emigrant in London. The ballad’s chorus could just as easily have been written about Catherine O’Brien, for whom Clare became a playground for several years, even though she lived almost 200kms away in Dungarvan.
A romantic online connection with a Clare vet led to her spending weekends regularly in west Clare, with her social life revolving around the new friends she was making there. And when she advertised positions in a pub which she said she had bought, those friends eagerly looked forward to fun nights in a premises owned by one of their own.
But looking through the judgement made in favour of the Criminal Assets Bureau against Catherine O’Brien earlier this year, it is clear that the connections made by Catherine in Clare were treated not as friends but as acquaintances which came in useful to her business plans.
To those acquaintances, including the vet, Catherine was a solicitor – or at the very least, worked in legal circles and was an expert in any crisis involving help with any legal matter. The reality that she was a florist in Dungarvan was a secret she hid well.
One acquaintance, businessman Paddy O’Donoghue, recalls: “I would have met her half a dozen times. You would swear butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.” Even now, he had to ask if Catherine was ever a solicitor.
He explains why:
He came to know her through the vet, with whom Catherine appeared to be in a relationship. Mr O’Donoghue, who runs a veterinary supplies business, supplied her with items for her veterinary business because of the Clare vet’s involvement with her.
He says: “I used to meet her and she used to talk a big game about what she was doing. She was very persuasive, very charming.” The vet, Sean* (*not his real name), was hoping for a happy-ever-after when he turned to online dating to meet someone.
Living and working in west Clare, he loved country life and socialising. But he wanted someone to share it with. He had hoped for a life-changing meeting through the site, but he hadn’t expected the changes to be quite so dramatic and impactful not just on himself but also on family and acquaintances.
Before they met in person, the two had chatted online before swapping phone numbers and finally meeting up about a month after the first connection was made. Sean describes himself as a “devil may care” sort of person, someone who takes someone at their word, even now.
He reflects:
“I met her in July 2011. She came up to my house. I would be kind of easy going and devil may care. She came to my house and we went to Doolin for something to eat, came home to my place.”
The two got on well and Catherine stayed in Sean’s house that night. The following day, the would-be couple went on an excursion to the Aran Islands. So far, so very normal. However, Sean says now that he “just didn’t fancy her”, but he felt trapped.
Having thought that Catherine was a solicitor, he told her about speeding fines he had racked up. She promised to get them “sorted” and he believed she had the contacts to do so.
He admits: “She kept coming back to me and I had the speeding tickets so I felt if I did not keep in touch, she would not sort them.” And as time went on, Catherine became a central part of his life, even though he is, even now, reluctant to admit they became a couple of sorts.
Yet Catherine was a regular visitor to his home in Clare, even buying some items for the house. Looking back, Sean recalls that he never travelled to Catherine’s adopted hometown of Dungarvan. There were arrangements made for such a visit, but they never happened. Something always “came up”.
He has kept emails and receipts and invoices from their time together – both personally and in business – and they showed that their connection was not all plain sailing.
For him, it was not a “happy ever after” relationship but although he says he did not feel like they were a couple, they went on holidays together to France, Spain and Italy over a year after meeting, in July 2012. Despite their continued relationship, he still did not know a lot about Catherine.
He says now: “She was always saying she had so much money in the bank and she was going retiring. She told me she had two offices – one in Dungarvan, one in Fermoy. I am a very trusting person. I don’t question. I take people at face value. I wouldn’t be a person to check someone out to the nth degree.”
As a result, when he encountered difficulties in his business life in late 2012, he once again leaned on Catherine, as he had when she had promised to sort his speeding tickets.
He explains: “I rang her because she sorted everything – whatever you wanted, she would do it.” In the meantime, the two began to look at going into business, with a visit to an Allsop auction leading to the acquisition of a premises in Buttevant for a veterinary-related business in December 2012.
He recalls her enthusiasm at the time: “She said she had loads of money and we could set up two premises and expand the business – one in Dungarvan and one in Buttevant.” He now reflects that his move was a mad one:
He also got involved in business with her in her own backyard – Dungarvan. He became involved in her plans to set up two veterinary-related businesses there, called Abbeyside Veterinary and the Animal Emporium.
According to the CAB judgement, she would later deny to gardaí that she owned the business in Dungarvan, saying that she was operating it on behalf of the Clare-based vet.
In March 2013, an anonymous letter arrived in the post to Sean, containing an article which had been printed in a newspaper some years previously, focusing on serial debts she had run up with financial institutions. He says he does not know who sent him that letter, but it showed a side to Catherine that he was not aware of.
From then on, his view of Catherine “all changed”. He confronted her on the phone about the letter and she managed to persuade him not to worry about it. However, his relatives were not convinced and tried to convince him to cut his ties with her.
In an email to him in April 2013, she talked about her confusion about the status of their personal relationship, and refuted what she saw as an implication by him that she “took money for myself out of the account” of the business in Dungarvan.
She also wrote: “Do I need to list every last thing I bought for you and put a value on it, do I need to get back everything I put into your house?
But he said however that by then, he was involved “fairly big” in business dealings with her. He says: “I had to be careful – if I broke ties with her straightaway, I could have been caught for a lot of money.”
However, the company was shortlived, with the business just lasting for nine months, having been registered on June 21, 2012. The business was located at Boithrin na Mhuillean, in Dungarvan’s Abbeyside, with Sean as the registered owner. There were no references to Catherine O’Brien on any of the documents relating to the company.
Aside from their business dealings, the personal side of their connection could be described as toxic at times, with one episode leading to an assault charge being brought against Sean, which was later dropped.
On another occasion, Sean confronted her when a large sum of money disappeared from his house, believing she may have taken it. However, she refuted the allegation and told him in an email: “It is my intention to report to the gardaí the theft of the money from your house and that you accused me of taking it.”
In May 2013, Catherine’s persona as a legal expert came to the fore when she drafted a contract which she wanted members of Sean’s family to sign. The contract, in which she called herself Kate O’Brien, requested that Sean’s parents and brother “shall not under any circumstances in any way interfere with” herself, or “conduct any drive-bys” of Sean’s house while she was there.
It also requested that the three should not “come within 50 meters” of Catherine O’Brien, “or cause any upset whatsoever” to her. And it further asked that Sean’s parents and brother “will refrain from interfering in any way with any dealings” between her and Sean. The contract was to be effective immediately, for a period of 24 months.
Despite the heavy-handed approach Catherine took in drawing up the contract (which his relatives refused to sign), Sean remained close to her, even travelling to Dublin to an All-Ireland final and subsequent replay with her where they viewed the game from a corporate box in Croke Park. The box was organised by a well-connected acquaintance, who told Catherine by email that the seats for the replay were on level 5, with “best view in house on the centre line”.
Some months later, towards the end of 2013, Sean decided to fully pull the plug on their business connection. By then, he had decided not to go ahead with the purchase of the Buttevant property, which was subsequently purchased by an acquaintance of his, a Co. Clare dairy farmer.
The farmer’s paths crossed with Catherine’s through Sean and he went on to become involved in her business, Advanced Vetmed Ireland Ltd (AVMI). An application for a voluntary strike-off of AVMI was lodged with the Companies Registration Office in July this year, by the dairy farmer and another farmer from Limerick. Both were directors.
Earlier this year, the High Court ruled that a 151-registered Land Rover Discovery could be seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau after the CAB alleged that Catherine had bought it through the proceeds of criminal frauds. CAB’s case was that she had altered and misused cheques received from the farmer for the AVMI Ltd.
The judgement also stated: “There is no evidence that AVMI Ltd traded in veterinary products. Catherine O’Brien was not a director of that company or a signatory to the company bank account which was opened in December 2014. She was not entitled to buy or sell motor vehicles on behalf of that company or to hold herself out as having authority to engage in these transactions.”
In a statement of complaint made by the farmer to gardaí, he said that a series of frauds had been perpetrated on him by Catherine. For example, the judgement said, “He gave an account of giving her money to buy pipes which were never delivered.” It added that the farmer claimed “that he provided Catherine O’Brien with money for horses which disappeared”.
In the judgment against her, Mr Justice Alexander Owens also made reference to her claims to have bought a pub in Clare.
The judgment continued: “The investment in the public house was to be used in some way to balance up the money which he (the dairy farmer) had put into AVMI Ltd (the company he was involved in with Catherine O’Brien). There is evidence that she placed an advertisement and conducted interviews for prospective employees of this public house which was not bought.”
Sean remembers the pub saga well. He says: “She promised people that there would be great nights there. She held interviews for staff for the premises even though it was not for sale at the time. A number of people turned up for the interviews and everyone was saying to me how great it would be.”
He smiles at times when he looks back on how things evolved since his first meeting with Catherine and recalls: “I didn’t lose an awful lot – there was around €20,000 of unpaid bills at the end.” Though he remains out of pocket to this day, he reflects that “it is only money” and has moved on with his life.
But he feels, looking back, that he was governed by fear of what Catherine O’Brien had over him in relation to the difficulties in his business and believes he would have cut ties with her much quicker only for that.
He says: “I was afraid of her because she had too much information. If you stop it (the relationship), she goes and reports you and you could lose your job.”
And he says: “It was my own fault – I could have called stop at any time, but I was afraid.”
He has not met Catherine for many years, and she is now a memory who crops up from time to time but who, for him, is best left in his past.
Further up the west coast, in Galway, lives a teenage boy who got a new phone last year. One day in recent months, he became a little perturbed when he answered a call and the person at the other end – this reporter – asked if he knows a woman called Catherine O’Brien.
It is clear he has never heard of her, nor of another woman called Amy Power, a pseudonym believed to have been used on occasions by the elusive Corkwoman. The phone number has been linked to both names in the past.
The boy was so taken aback that he mentioned the call to his parents that night. They decided to check why someone was so adamant that the phone number of their son belonged to someone else. The number has been in use by the boy for the past year or so, his mum told the .
The family were unaware that the number previously belonged to Catherine O’Brien a number of years ago. It remains the only number some people have for contacting either her or a woman they knew as Amy Power. The number has now been re-circulated because Catherine changed it some years ago – and abandoned its replacement in favour of a series of other phone numbers.
The most recently known number she was believed to have had no longer rings out, much to the frustration of many people desperate to get in touch with her – including the . Calls to people thought to be close to her are unanswered, while text messages and emails are also unreturned.
Some people know her as Catherine O’Brien, while others knew her only as Kate or Katie. Others still believe they knew her by different names completely, including Amy Power. Her home address at Ballinroad in Dungarvan remains unlived in, while another address in Cork she has given people as her home has no link to her whatsoever.
Although that address is in the Buttevant area, relatives of hers do not live there. The occupants do not know Catherine O’Brien and a number of people who called to the house looking for her reached a dead end in their hunt. In one case, one man who travelled from Leinster to the address never knew until afterwards that she had not lived in Buttevant for many years, and that she had a home in Dungarvan.
Although she is lying low, gardaí believe some people close to her are still in touch with her. At her abandoned home in Dungarvan, mail which had been stuck in the mailbox in recent weeks was no longer there on a subsequent visit to the property by the .
The Scarlet Pimpernel-type figure she has become – evading both the law and people who claimed to have lost hundreds of thousands of euro to her business schemes – has left a trail of destruction in her wake, from the west coast, across the Midlands and south, to the east coast.
Among those whose paths crossed with her are a small number who are either terminally ill or have died since losing money to her. In their cases, their families are still trying to comprehend the trail of destruction left by involvement with the legendary Catherine O’Brien. Friendships have broken down too in some cases where people blame each other for introducing her to them, while marital relationships have also been put under pressure because of her.
And while there are currently six live fraud cases being investigated by gardaí on foot of complaints made about Catherine O’Brien, the full extent of the losses that people have suffered – including the amount of money and the number of people affected – is still unknown.
The complaints under investigation relate to horse investment schemes through a website set up to target people interested in thoroughbred horses. Another relates to a scheme involving investment related to a property which was for sale in France, also related to horses.
The website, which no longer exists, carried a list of services including racehorse purchase and management, and investment opportunities. The blurb regarding investment opportunities read that private clients were being provided with “the opportunity to acquire permanent residency in Ireland through the Government-backed ‘Immigrant Investor Programme’.”
The blurb added:
The website also offered select “equine consignment for private clients to ensure that each horse will be well presented at sales, looking and feeling its best”.
The website gave an address in Merrion Square as the “global offices” of the company. A phone number on the website no longer belongs to Catherine O’Brien, but is one of the numbers she was known to use in the past.
Gardaí are not commenting in relation to the complaints against her, but sources say that she is wanted for questioning in relation to some of the complaints, while there has been a direction from the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge her in connection with others.
The live cases refer to allegations relating to the past three or four years, with the most recent being a year ago, according to garda sources. Among those who failed to fall under the spell of Catherine O’Brien is Senator David Norris. He does not have a recollection of when or how he met her, saying it was a long time ago.
But he recalls: “Ms O’Brien did approach me and invited me down to her farm to see a horse she claimed was gay. I dropped in out of politeness but despite her suggestions I had no interest in becoming involved in any of her plans.” He adds: “To be honest with you I can’t recall when it was and what she was suggesting. It was I believe a long time ago.”
Currently, staff and volunteers at the Wicklow-based Irish Horse Welfare Trust are caring for 25 horses which were seized in Ballygarrett, Co. Wexford, in June 2019. A bench warrant for Catherine remains live, following her conviction in her absence last year for 34 counts of animal welfare legislation breaches relating to the horses.
Chief executive of the trust, Sharon Power, says more than €250,000 has been spent on caring for the thoroughbred animals in the past three years. The animals will remain in the care of the trust while a bench warrant for her arrest remains live.
She was convicted under Section 12(1) of the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013. Under the act, there are penalties of up to €250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years. Also under the legislation, a convicted person can be the subject of an order from the judge disqualifying them from “owning, having any interest in, keeping, dealing in or having charge or control, directly or indirectly, of an animal”.
Gardai are not the only ones waiting for closure in the horse welfare case. So too are the staff at the Irish Horse Welfare Trust. “It is an awful strain on a relatively small charity,” says Sharon Power, explaining that caring for 25 thoroughbred horses is much more expensive than caring for other horses.
She explains:
While the Irish Horse Welfare Trust gets some State grant aid, the organisation also relies on donations and fundraising, which she said was non-existent during Covid-19.
She continues: “It also means that because of having horses we can’t rehome yet, it limits our numbers that we can take in. We are still doing our best not to turn away rescue cases and deal with them, but it does mean that there is limited capacity for what we can actually house.”
Typically, the Trust cares for between 60 and 70 horses during the winter months. Ms Power explains that the current situation means that a third of their capacity is filled by the horses relating to the animal cruelty case involving Catherine O’Brien. She says that the Trust is basically holding the horses on behalf of gardaí until the case is closed.
She continues: “I doubt there has ever been a case involving this many horses that has gone on for this long. It is the charity that is picking up the cost here and looking after the horses.” She accepts that this is the raison d’etre of the charity.
But she said: “Our objective is to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome because obviously we cannot keep taking in horses if we don’t rehome them.” The Trust has concerns about increasing costs when facing into the winter. The price of hay bales has risen from €30 to €35 last year to between €50 and €55 per bale this year.
Ms Power elaborated: “The cost of feeding that among of animals through the winter is colossal. Thoroughbred horses are not like your average pony either – they are high maintenance. They take a lot of feeding on top of fodder to keep them in good condition. And there is ongoing vaccinations, there is ongoing hoof care, ongoing worming. It is a huge cost.”
She adds that thoroughbred horses are not as tough as native breeds. The Trust currently has just two full time and one part time staff members, as well as volunteers.
She continued: “It is difficult to keep looking after these horses at the moment with no sight of the end.” Ms Power believes that there is a weakness in animal welfare legislation in cases such as this, as there is no provision for individual cases which are not concluded in the courts. The horses cannot be put up for adoption until the case has concluded.
She explains: “They are not ours to put up for adoption.” While the animals are microchipped, passports can’t be obtained for them because ownership must be declared on passport documents. Ms Power declares: “It is an absolute mess.”
“The way the legislation is set up currently is that the judge deals with the issue of disposal of the horses in cases like this.” The Irish Horse Welfare Trust has raised its concerns around the current legislation with the Department of Agriculture in the hope that it will be looked at in the future.
Ms Power believes other charities working in animal welfare have experienced such difficulties in the past but stresses that those cases would have involved less horses and a lesser amount of time.
She points out that the age of some of the animals in the care of the Trust are heading into the twilight years, which will make it more difficult to rehome them when the time comes. She is keen to stress that the staff and volunteers at the Trust are “very fond” of the horses, saying they are a “lovely bunch of horses”.
But she says: “We want to see them go on before it gets too late for some of them because some of them are getting older, before it is too late for them to go on and have a home.” The animals range in age from five or six years old to their late teens.
She explains: “It is very hard to get people to take on older horses because obviously (when) taking on an older horse, you are faced with the potential of veterinary bills, and health issues, not to mention if something awful happens that they have to be put down.”
Indeed, eight of the horses which were seized initially had to be put down because of health issues. One was very elderly while others were old and had severe health issues, including hoof problems.
Ms Power says that the fact that the horses are all thoroughbreds will also make it difficult to find homes for them because they are not typically used as riding horses.
But she adds: “We have not been even able to try (to find them homes) and I am sure there were homes lost there over the last three years for some of them but we couldn’t put the horses forward for those homes.”
In response to a query from the , a statement from the Department of Agriculture said: “The Department understands that the case in question was taken by An Garda Síochána and that the subsequent issues in terms of rehoming the animal are based on a ruling of the district court. Under Section 38 of the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, costs may be recouped from the owner of the animal should the judiciary decide.”
The statement added that the department constantly keeps legislation under review, including the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013.
Back in her native Buttevant, a man who remembers Catherine O’Brien from her days growing up there says it has been a long time since he last saw her, but he does recall her being “problematic”. Of the last time he saw her, he recalls thinking that she she appeared to be doing well for herself.
“The last time I saw her was on the road from town, driving a new top-of-the-range Range Rover at the time.” He does not want to be identified, out of respect for her family.
A man who encountered the woman he knew as Kate O’Brien up to a dozen times describes her as appearing to be one of the most intelligent people he ever met. He described her as “being very good at what she does,” adding: “She comes across as self-deprecating and kind of insecure”.
But he says that underneath this persona was a very different person, who has managed to mostly keep off social media platforms, making her more difficult to trace. He adds: “I have never come across anyone remotely like her. She is a bit of a genius.”
Back in Co. Clare, Paddy O’Donoghue, remembers her as charming and assertive, well able to persuade people to become involved in business opportunities she presented.
He says: “She was charming, seemed very smart and very able-minded. Nothing would be a problem.” He says she was well able to speak legal jargon, persuading people that she was working in law.
He recalls: “She was assertive, she knew the answers, she knew what she wanted, and to me, it seemed a perfect opportunity to do business with her and I did.”
He felt that supplying her for her veterinary business planned for Dungarvan would be a good opportunity for him to expand his business into Waterford, but he ended up not being paid for the products he supplied to her.
He says: “These type of people are very, very well able to influence you and well able to hoodwink you.”
“She was confident. She was never rude, or threatening or abusive or anything like that but she was so confident, she could hoodwink you very quickly.”
He believes she knew exactly what she was doing, elaborating: “She knew she was able to get stuff and she was able to use the people around her and use the contacts that other people had in each other to benefit her.”
- Attempts have been made to contact Catherine O’Brien by phone, email, at her home, and through a number of solicitors who have acted on her behalf over the past 20 years. However, all attempts were unsuccessful.
- Check out the four-part podcast series Catherine the Fake, available on IrishExaminer.com and wherever you get your podcasts. If you have information about the whereabouts of Catherine O’Brien, contact Ann Murphy on ann.murphy@examiner.ie.
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